About

What is NoDPad.com?

No DPad is an iPhone and iPod Touch gaming site that focuses on covering games on the app store, through fair and direct reviews as well as other content. The name No DPad comes from a common complaint against iPhone gaming — its lack of physical controls, and a directional pad (dpad). This site aims to show that the iPhone and iPod Touch’s lack of physical buttons don’t limit its capibilities, but rather spark innovation because developers are forced to become more creative.

No DPad focuses on covering games that push forward the idea of the iPod Touch and iPhone being true gaming platforms.

We never charge a developer for a review, and never post paid reviews. You can trust that the opinions found on this website are not influenced by money.

Contact

The editors can be reached at comments@nodpad.com, ryan@nodpad.com and daniel@nodpad.com for a variety of reasons:

Want to have your game reviewed?

Developers, feel free to send information about your game and a promo code for possible review and coverage. There’s no guarantee your app will be reviewed, but we sincerely take time to go through each email. Please email all of us with details on your game. If you’re contacting us with the intention of getting an iPad game reviewed, send your email to daniel@nodpad.com and matt@nodpad.com as these two are the reviewers on staff with iPads.

Advertising?

Would you like to advertise your game on this site? We have several different solutions to meet your needs. Our advertising is managed by BuySellAds, and you can find details on pricing and placements at our BuySellAds page. Through it, you can see your ad on our site immediately without having to deal with the headache of trading emails. Visit our BuySellAds page to see the latest impression statistics. Please send any questions to comments@nodpad.com.

Comments & Suggestions?

We welcome any thoughts you may have on the site. Please send us a line.

Twitter

Follow us at twitter.com/nodpad. You’ll get an idea of what will be talked about ahead of time, find extra news shared, and have a chance to win free games!

Reviews Scale

Our reviews scoring system is divided into four levels: “Avoid”, “Worth a Look”, “Buy”, and “Must Have”. This simple system is aimed at giving you a quick idea if a game is worth your time and money.

Games rated ‘Avoid’ have serious problems, and should not be purchased or played. We didn’t enjoy the title, and don’t expect anyone else to like it either. There may be technical issues with the app, or gameplay problems that we found major enough to decide not to recommend it to anyone.

These games offer some fun through their playthrough, although the games are most likely to suffer some issues in quality, gameplay, price or originality. A game that is rated ‘Worth a Look’ should be considered as a possible purchase by those that are fans of the genre, as long as they are comfortable with the noted problems in the review.

For a game to be rated a ‘Buy’, it must be an impressive and fun title. There may be some minor problems, but overall the game is fun and we think others will enjoy it too. If you’re a fan of the genre, you should buy the game, and for everyone else it is worth checking out.

This is the highest level a game can achieve at No DPad. For a game to be a ‘Must Have’, it has to stand out as an example of innovation and quality in Apple’s app store. We recommend everyone buy games in this class, as the games represent the best that the app store has to offer.

Our reviews are broken down into two main parts: Likes, and Dislikes. As you can imagine, any aspect of the game that the reviewer enjoyed is described in the Likes section, and similarly for any complaints in the Dislikes section. The reviews that you find on this site are not necessarily comprehensive. If a reviewer doesn’t find an aspect of the game noteworthy enough to be mentioned in the Likes or Dislikes sections, then it will go overlooked.

Daniel has been an iPhone game addict ever since the NES emulator came out on the 1.1.4 iPhone 2G. After 2.0 and the App Store came out, his iPhone homescreen has never been the same. Other than writing reviews for App Store games, he likes to play soccer/football, American football, volleyball, and golf. He loves going to the beach and fishing on the pier. Some games not available on iPhone/iPod Touch that he truly loves are the Call of Duty series, Guitar Hero III, Madden NFL 09, and PGR: Gotham Racing. Another one of his hobbies is playing the drums, a Pearl Vision series to be exact.

Ryan is passionate about iPod gaming and is a big fan of the platform. He splits his gaming between his PS3 and iPod Touch. He enjoys anything related to technology and loves to see developers and publishers push the limits of the iDevice platform. He sees the iPhone/iPod as the new generation of mobile gaming and is excited for the possibility of bigger and better iDevices in the future.

Evan has been a gamer since he first played Pokemon on a Gameboy Color back in 1996. He owns a Gameboy Advance, PS2, Gamecube, and an XBOX, not having taken the plunge on any of the newest consoles. In early 2008 he was introduced to the 1G iPod Touch, and since the introduction of the App Store has regularly bought and played all types of games. Evan is a viola performance major at one of the top universities in the US.

Hooked on video games since she first started playing Pong back in the day, Hope has played games on just about every console since. Portable gaming was perfect for her lifestyle however, as she played many games waiting in parking lots for her kids. Hope loves the innovation that the iDevices allow and loves watching the appstore grow by the moment. With the iDevice, she has a wealth of choices at her fingertips and enjoys just about every genre of game. Excited to no longer have to blow out the dust in her cartridges and not worry about burning out the pixels of the old TV; she enjoys carrying a huge library of games in her pocket.

Mike Lata, whose real or original name is Maciek, has been a fan of video games as well as PC games ever since he was a young kid growing up in Poland. He would always spend all his pocket change on a local arcade where he constantly plated the original Shinobi. When Mike was 9 years old he came to California with his mom and has lived here ever since. Mike recently got a journalism degree from Chico State and currently lives in Silicon Valley. He hopes to continue writing about games and technology and maybe land a job at IGN, Apple, or some gaming-or-technology company. He also enjoys investigative reporting and has a couple blogs, one in which he posts iDevice reviews and also news articles for a couple sites. For Mike, indie gaming has always been interesting as smaller dev houses are less afraid to push gaming in a new direction and try new ideas.

Got Oats

We are a proud member of the Got Oats community. Being a part of this group of sites entails full trust in our reviews process. You can feel comfortable knowing that all reviews you see on the site are not influenced by money or any other factor. Please read more about our promises to readers at the Got Oats website.

Link to Us

If you’d like to link to us with our logo, you can find them below. When linking within text, please use “No DPad”.